Driftnet Ban Fails to Save Ireland's Atlantic Wild Salmon
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The Irish Times] by Lorna Siggins - February 24, 2017
Ten years after Ireland banned driftnetting for salmon at sea, the controversial measure has proved to be a failure.
The Atlantic wild salmon is in a “serious position” and various conservation measures “don’t seem to have worked”, Inland Fisheries Ireland chief executive Dr Ciaran Byrne has said.
Speaking at the annual Salmon Watch Ireland conference in Galway, Byrne said marine survival of the species had fallen from 20 per cent of fish returning to rivers in 1980 to five per cent today, before any exploitation.
The non-governmental organisation is dedicated to “restoration of wild Atlantic salmon abundance”.
Angling now accounts for 63 per cent of salmon catches since 2007, the year when the driftnet ban sought by the European Commission...
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